MAKILALA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Municipality of Makilala
Entrepreneurship Department

DEGREE PROGRAM: BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Course Number: Philo 1
Course Title: Ethics
Credits: 3 units
Duration: Week 3 and 4 (September 14-18 and 21-25, 2020)
Module No.: 2
Instructor:
Ms. Czarina A.Tabugoc ( Entrepreneurship Department)
09055831784
Messenger: Czarina T.Cheribias/Czarina Tabugoc
Gmail Account: czar.czarina22@gmail.com

I. Topic
Elements of Moral act

II. Objectives:
After reading this module you are expected to:

1. define Ethics and Morality

2. differentiate Human act and Acts of Human
3. identify the types of ignorance
4. explain Norms of Morality
5. differentiate moral and non-moral activity.

III. Read and Learn:

Etymologically, the word "moral" comes from the Latin word "mos" (pl. mores) which, in the Roman
language and culture, expresses the same concept as the Greek word "ethos" which means "custom,
habit or character." From the word "mores" comes the root of the word "moral," and "morality."

Morality is the quality of goodness or evilness which is attributed to human acts or to particular aspects
of life such as sexual behavior, religious practices and the wide range of the free and conscious acts of
man whether as an individual or in a group.

a. Judgment - judgment of what is morally good or bad.

b. Choice - choosing what is good or what is distinct from the judgment of conscience.
c. Object of the moral act - The object consists of the act itself and those realities

which are affected by the act and which should be considered in deciding whether

the act is morally good or bad.

The fundamental concern of morals is to answer the practical question: What should I do? There are
four relevant aspects:

1. Fundamental convictions of religious beliefs

2. The character of the moral agent such as capacities, dispositions, affections and the like

3. The situation in which the conflict of values arises

4. Appropriate norms

Kinds of goodness

i. Objectively good - one will judge correctly what a good thing to do is objectively. Then one will choose
to act in accord with thatjudgment. Finally the objectively good thing will be done.

ii. Subjectively good- when choice conforms to the judgment of conscience.

Lesson 2: Human Acts and Acts of Man

1. Human Acts - the actions man does knowingly, freely and voluntarily Such as acts include cursing,
suicide, killing

2. Acts of Man - acts done by man without deliberation or volition, and simple acts of sensation. There is
ignorance, fear, love and emotion, physical and biological movement

Elements of a Human Act (These 3 elements must be present):

a. Knowledge b. Freedom of the WilI C. Voluntariness

Impediments to a Human Act

1. Ignorance- is the absence of knowledge needed by man in the performance of the act.

Lesson 3: 3 types of ignorance

Invincible ignorance
Vincible ignorance
Affected ignorance
  Invincible Ignorance- You don’t know something, you can’t possibly know something. Can’t
be overcome.

 Vincible Ignorance-When we dont know something. But we can know something

 Affected ignorance- Where you don’t know something, you could know, you don’t want to
know, you try to remain ignorance.

Kinds of Vincible ignorance

 Antecedent Ignorance- When ignorance comes before the will can decide on the morality of act.
Action is done because of ignorance and through ignorance.
Example: The chef served a poisonous mushroom not knowing that it can cause the death of its
customer.

 Concomitant ignorance- It has casual influence of the actions, the action is performed in
ignorance and with ignorance.
Example: A student misses his ethics class but even if he knows, he still miss it.

 Consequent Ignorance- Ignorance is dependent on the wills decision.

Example: A doctor suspects that the patients disease is cancerous but deliberately refrain from making
sure and does not inform him

2. Concupiscence or Passion- It is the natural inclination of the sense appetite towards what is
consciously perceived as sensual evil.
It is the strong sensual desire or lust

Example- because the teen had a fixation with his concupiscence for sex he watched a lot of porn
movies.

Kinds of concupiscence
a. Antecedent concupiscence- is present before any act of the will is made due to the
suddenness of the passion as surging forth uncontrolled such as sudden ager

b. Consequent Concupiscence- is present when the intellect is aware of the hidden

passion and the will is to chooses to foster or to arouse the passion.

Example: A student was bullied by her classmate, to get revenge she planned to make the girl
slip to the stair of their school.

3. Fear-It is the disturbance of the mind of a person who is confronted by an impending danger or
harm to himself or loved ones.
Types of fear

 Grave fear- aroused by the presence of a danger. That is regarded by most of the people as
serious. That is judged and serious by the one that is concerned.

 Slight fear – aroused by a danger that is not so serious

4. Violence- It is an exercise of an outside physical force upon a resisting person to compel him to act
against his will.

Types of Violence

 Perfect violence- In which all possible form of resisting is utilized

A girl was walking when suddenly a guy hold up her asking for her things She did all she can to escape
the guy.

 Morally perfect Violence- Is that in which all powers of resistance should be used but not
employed for a good reason.
Example: A man is being robbed attempts to fight the robber but soon realizes that further assistance
will soon result to his death.

 Imperfect violence- In which some resistance is shown but not as much as should be.

Example: A girl was robbed in her house. She can call the police but did not take the action.

5. Habit- Are inclination to perform some particular action acquired by repetition and characterized by
a decrease power of resistance and an increase facility of performance.

Evaluation:

A. Answer the following:

1. How is Ethics differ from morality?
2. What is the difference between Human Act and Acts of Human? Give at least 2 examples each.
3. Give the three types of ignorance and give an example of each type.

B. Identification
Identify the following statement. Write the correct answer on the space provided before each
number

____________1. It is an exercise of an outside physical force upon resisting person to compel him to
act against his will.

_____________2. It is a natural inclination of the sense appetite towards what is consciously

perceived as sensual evil

_____________3. It is the absence of knowledge needed by man in the performance of the act
 _____________4. It is the object consists of the act itself and those realities which are affected by
the act and which should be considered in deciding whether the act is morally good or bad.

_____________5. It is aroused by a danger that is not so serious

_____________6. An inclination to perform some particular action acquired by repetition and

characterized by a decrease power of resistance and increase facility performance.

_____________7. It is the disturbance of the mind of a person who is confronted by an impending

danger or harm to himself or loved ones.

_____________8. It has casual influence of the actions; the action is performed in ignorance and
with ignorance

_____________9. It is present when the intellectual is aware of hidden passion and the will is to
choose to foster or to arouse the passion.

_____________10. It is presented before any act of will is made due to the suddenness of the
passion as surging forth uncontrolled such as sudden anger.

Norms of moraliy

This is an attempt to understand the norms of Morality in general. Norm is a rule or standard for our
judgment. It remains as a standard or rule with which we can judge our actions as good or bad. For this
we compare the human acts with the norms and come to our conclusion.

Norms of Morality -It is an authoritative standard to which a human act must conform to be morally
good.

There are criteria to be considered:

1. It must not be subject to change.

2. It must be universal
3. It must be accessible to all.
4. It must be apply to all conditions of life.
5. It must be a single standard.

• LAW- The highest norm of morality is the eternal law. The eternal is the objective and universal
law whereby GOD orders, directs governs the entire universe and the way of human community
according to the plan of his divine wisdom and love.
• Man is not only a participant and sharer of the eternal law but also a subject of natural law.
Natural law deals with questions of how human beings ought to behave and how they should
treat each other.
• Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of man. There he is alone with GOD whose
echoes in his depths.

Dimension of conscience
 • Syndereses- is the basic tendency or capacity within us to know and to .do the good.

• Moral Science- is the force of conscience. It empowers us to search out the objective moral
values in each specific situation in order to discover the right thing to do.

• Conscience- the specific judgement of the good which I must do in this particular situation.

Determinants of Morality -are certain factors which contribute to the goodness or evilness of a
concrete individual.

• Object- can be a things, an external act, or an internal act to which the will is primarily directed.
The object maybe intrinsically good ,intrinsically evil or morally indifferent.

• End-
a. The end of the agent makes a morally indifferent act good or evil.
b. A good act becomes better when performed with a good intention
c. A good act becomes evil when performed with an evil.
d. An evil can never become good when performed with a good intention.

In ethics we can find TWO KINDS OF NORMS:

subjective norm of morality- the moral authority dwells within the individual. In ethics, conscience can
be understood as the subjective norm of morality.

objective norms of morality- Objective norm is the standard for an objective evaluation of the human
acts

A norm or criterion is a Standard of Judgement. -“It is a rule or standard by which principles, facts,
statements and conduct are tested, so as to form a correct judgement concerning them”.

In ethics a moral criterion is a rule or standard by means of which we are able to discriminate between
what is morally good and morally evil and to arrive at a correct judgement that a particular act is morally
good or morally evil. The moral criterion presupposes the existence of an objective moral ‘standard’ or
norm with which the particular act can be compared. With the moral norm, human beings can test the
morality of the act and judge whether it be good or evil. In general a norm is an authoritative standard,
which gives as a pattern or model to which things of similar nature must conform. Thus a judgement can
be described as a comparison of an act with the standard or norm. When the act conforms to the norm
of morality, we judge the act to be good and when we find that the act deviates from the norm, we
judge the act to be evil.

In order to be effective as a moral criterion or standard of judgement, a norm of morality should have
the following qualifications:

1. The Norm needs to be Unchangeable -The basic and fundamental nature of morality is its stability. If
the norm is changing and fluctuating, the morality would be lacking its fundamental stability. Such a
 norm would not be a reliable standard, because in such cases human beings can never be certain of
the morality of his/her acts.

2. The Norm needs to be Universal - The norm is meant to everybody. It is not for a particular group or
class of persons. It should be applicable to all human beings. Everybody should feel himself or
herself bound to the moral law. Nobody can be exempted from this obligation.

3. The Norm needs t be Accessible to all The universal accessibility of the norm is an essential nature of
it. Everybody must be able to know at least the fundamental principles of morality. It will help them
to lead a moral life. Unless the norm of morality is accessible to all, they can never arrive at
knowledge of the fundamental principles of morality because all moral principles naturally flow from
the norm.

4. The Norm needs to be Applicable to all Conditions of Life If only the norm is within the mental reach
of every individual, they would be able to make all their actions conform to the norm of morality. In
other case, such a norm could not serve a standard for every individual in all his/her actions.

3 CONSCIENCE AS SUBJECTIVE to NORM OF MORALITY

Conscience is the subjective norm of morality in which we trace the moral authority inside the
individual. It is not something that directs from outside. Conscience is an ‘inner voice’ as described
by Mahatma Gandhi which directs one by telling what to do or what not to do.

Conscience can be defined as the subjective awareness of the moral quality of one’s own actions as
indicated by the moral values to which one subscribes.

In the opinion of Butler, an English moral philosopher, conscience has got two different aspects:

A cognitive or reflective aspect and an imperative or authoritative aspect.

In the cognitive or reflective function of conscience discerning the goodness and badness of the
human action is important. It considers characters, actions, intentions and motives with the special
aim of discovering their goodness and badness.

In the imperative or authoritative aspect the decision is important. Here conscience does not
merely give arguments for one action rather than another, but it decides in favour of one action.

Acts of Conscience -The feeling of remorse has always been connected with conscience. It is a deep
regret for a wrong committed. Conscience not only makes judgment over certain actions that we
have done as right or wrong, but it arouses a peculiar feeling of pain that is extremely unpleasant.
This pain of conscience or feeling of remorse is identified by moralists as one of the reasons of
avoiding wrong actions.

Antecedent and Consequent Conscience

Conscience can be divided into antecedent conscience and consequent conscience.

Antecedent conscience -deals with future actions whereas consequent conscience deals with the
past actions. Conscience that acts as a guide to future actions, prompting to do them or avoid them
can be defined as an antecedent conscience.
 consequent conscience - Conscience which is acting as a judge to our past actions, the source of our
self-approval or remorse, In ethics Antecedent conscience, which is a guide to our future action, is
more important.

The acts of Antecedent Conscience are divided into four.

a). Mental act of a ‘command’ whereby one senses that a particular act is ‘to be done’. It is an
imperative and the individual is not free not to do the act.

b) Act of ‘forbidding’ whereby one senses that a particular act is ‘not to be done’. It is an obligation
to avoid such acts. Doing of such act is an immoral act.

c) Act of ‘permitting’ in which one regards an act as ‘allowed’ by one’s own moral values.

d) Act of ‘advising’ in which one is aware that an act is either probably better to do or probably
worse to do.

Division of Conscience The judgement of the conscience can be understood as the judgement of the
intellect. The human intellect can be mistaken either by adopting false premises or by drawing an
illogical conclusion.

Because of this there can be different consciences such as

Correct, Erroneous, Doubtful, Certain, Perplexed and Scrupulous consciences.

Correct conscience judges as good what is really good, or as evil what is really evil. Erroneous
conscience judges as good what is really evil, or as evil what is really good. Certain conscience judges
without fearing that the opposite may be true.
Doubtful conscience either hesitates to make any judgement at all or does make a judgement but with
misgivings that the opposite may be true.
Perplexed conscience belongs to one who cannot make up his/her mind. Such persons remain in a state
of indecisive anguish, especially if s/he thinks that s/he will be doing wrong whichever alternative he
chooses.
A scrupulous conscience torments its owner by rehearsing over and over again doubts that were once
settled. S/he finds new sources of guilt for old deeds that were best forgotten, striving for a kind of
certainty about one’s state of soul that is beyond our power in this life.

Answer correctly:

1. What is Norms of Morality?

2. What is a moral act? What is not a moral act?
3. What is the relationship between knowledge and moral responsibility?
4. How does human society show its belief that we are responsible for our actions? List several
examples.

References: